history

Canopus lived a rather simple life... at least as far as the life of a ghoul can be concerned. His parents taking on fitting careers that kept them under the radar. His parents owning funeral home. His father arranging the funerals and wakes, being the more personable parent. While his mother took on the career of a mortician. Able to keep herself, and others that came to them well fed. They had hopes of their son taking over their career. Playing it safe. Or as safe as one could. But he wasn't interested. As respectable, and happy of his parents careers. It wasn't the one he wanted for himself. 

He preferred to doodle. To draw, and to make and create things. To walk the streets and look at everything. There were so many things he wanted. And none of them involved dealing with the dead for a living. He'd sneak out of the house and spend hours just wandering and watching and looking at everything that he could. 

It happened one day during one of his exploring sessions when he was fourteen. He came home to find everything on fire, people finding out what they were. He saw them standing over his parent's bodies. Staring in shock and horror as everything he knew and loved crumbled into dust. His father was still alive, seeing him and mouthing for him to run. Run. "RUN!" His father attacking one of the humans as they turned around, as another jumped in to help, killing his father then. 

And then he was running. His feet pounding on the pavement as he ran with no known destination. He just had to run and run and run. And he did. He ran until his lungs burned, until his legs and his feet ached and his throat parched. He ran until he fell to the ground, too exhausted to try and get up. He just laid there on the concrete, breathing hard and then breaking out into sobs. 

He doesn't remember everything that happened after that. He remembered being hungry. He killed someone to eat, starving and exhausted and unable to stop himself... it was the first time he'd ever hunted. He's always just eaten what his parents gave him, something already dead. Never this fresh. Never still warm... and it was delicious. And it was nothing more than they deserved. They took his parents away for no reason. They had never done or hurt anyone. Eating from those already dead. Using bits people didn't need already, and they were killed anyways... so he was going to kill them all back. 

He squatted and hid away from people. Sleeping in abandoned buildings and houses, stealing what clothing he needed and going out to hunt often. 

It was two years after that he found a pad of paper. He'd killed another. Dragging the body into an abandoned building and chewing on an arm joint as he went through his things. Pausing when he'd found a schoolbag of a college student. Dumping out pens and pencils and coloured pencils. And a large pad of paper. He paused, staring at it. He remembered all those times that he'd spent drawing, and colouring. How much happiness and joy it'd given him... When was the last time he'd felt that? That he'd drawn something? Or simply enjoyed the look of the world... 

For the first time in a long time he dropped the arm and broke into tears. All the emotions and thoughts that he had pushed down for the last two years now making him break once more. He stayed there for several days considering, before he finally decided. 

He made a lot of mistakes, and trusted a few of the wrong people. But he eventually made and it found his way. He found a job, an apartment. Got a new identity, and caught up to high school online, before going to high school for his last year to try and get back into the world. More than anything, he got back into his drawing and his art. After taking a year off to work, he decided to go into college for art and architecture. Already people have bought some of his designs and ideas, and he's now living quite comfortably. 

He's also found someone to provide the meat he needs to live... even so. Sometimes, he still goes to hunt his meals and eat fresh. It's a taste he's come to like, once in a while. Sometimes he still hates people... but it's slowly easing up, and comes to enjoy the company of some.